we'd like to say that we've taken a special interest in you at the institute of philosophical meta-linguistics study (or IPMS), and your work has accomplished a great many things that have assisted us in our research on the forum philosopher.

an area of particular importance in our research is the study of philosophical behavior and how it corresponds to models we've designed to describe philosophical discourse in terms of maximizing cognitive consonance and avoiding cognitive dissonance, rather than what was previously believed to be the motivating force behind philosophy; the 'pursuit of truth'.

your importance lies in your ability to engage a particular dynamic we call antiprocess, and this forces philosophers to unknowingly reveal various kinds of defense mechanisms in order to avoid cognitive dissonance. in doing so, we are able to analyze specific patterns of reasoning that help govern social behavior, and this gives us insight into our constructivist theory of human nature.

what we have deduced after an extensive two century study - we are a secret organization of intellectuals founded on the work of comte (the positivist, not the cheese) - is that the liminal transition from mythopoeic to non-mythopoeic thought due to the rapid increase of activity in the sylvian fissure and broca area, has caused a precedence in attentional bias and cognitive inertia over the logical diffusion of the valenced components involved in reasoning.

we've discovered a vast array of mechanisms subconsciously employed by the philosopher to maintain a kind of mental stasis during the periods of information overload which are brought about due to the excessive ambiguity of philosophical language and vocabulary. what we have found is that the ruling dynamic governing philosophical behavior is what we call the 'belief perseverance' phenomena. we've allocated the structures of this phenomena to a variety of operant conditioning factors that evolve over the period of the learning stage each philosopher goes through... a stage which generally characterizes the period between 18 and 34. during this period, the philosopher undergoes a process in which what we call 'post-purchase vocabulary sets' are consigned to cognitive operations that either enforce or decline the emotional stasis of the philosopher.

what this means is remarkable; a philosopher can be completely submerged in linguistic nonsense without experiencing the least bit of cognitive dissonance. this proves that the higher level cognitive functions are completely epiphenomenal, and governed not by the rules of logic, but by the post-purchase efficacy of the vocabulary set as it relates to the real, existential circumstances reflected during that particular period in which the 'idea' was learned, and the extent to which the behavior exhibited during the allocation of that idea was positively or negatively reinforced by the social group the philosopher is participating in, or, by the pre-existing grammatical form giving sense upon which the newly developed line of philosophical nonsense is based. this is to say that the 'certainty' of the philosopher develops through a series of gradations which accumulate as the philosopher ages and loses his capacity to learn, finally reaching an apex period at which the philosopher is completely unable to unlearn the accumulated nonsense he has acquired over the years.

what contributes most to this inability is not that the philosopher lacks the capacity for neuro-plasticity - i.e., his brain is able to correct and diffuse the valence components involved in his nonsensical reasoning if he is taught how to use logic - but the overpowering force of the various defense mechanisms unconsciously employed to protect the philosopher from the cognitive dissonance he would experience if he discovered he were wrong.

these mechanisms are largely socially developed and have nothing to do with reasoning, per se. that is to say, there is no actual dissonance attributed to incorrect reasoning... only to the resultant consequences the philosopher experiences when his 'ignorance' is considered, socially, as some kind of evidence for inferiority or ineptitude. it is for this reason that the philosopher 'holds on' to his belief perseverance at any cost... so much so that his brain blocks and prevents any potential for post-purchase modification of his reasoning. this results in what we call 'effort justification', a process in which the retention of the nonsense the philosopher believes, because it is 'tried and true' in keeping emotionally consonant stasis, is worth more to him than the effort he would need to make to admit he is a buffoon and make an attempt to unlearn what he believes. the final mechanism, which insulates the philosopher from the cognitive dissonance that would follow his loss of certainty, is the dunning–kruger effect.

now what we would like to thank you for, specifically, is your ability to render theoretical and conceptual philosophical language into existentially inapplicable nonsense. we find your persistence in demanding that the philosopher demonstrate how his 'ideas' can be 'brought down to earth' such that one cannot be mistaken about their veracity in practice - about the 'rightness' of the idea as opposed to other ideas which are counter-factual and/or contrary to, and therefore challenge that veracity - to be very useful in helping further our research.

we have watched you do this with all manner of 'philosophers' with incredible consistency. we would therefore like to give you our prestigious medal of honor; the 'calling bullshit when you see it' (or CBWYSI award), and we look forward to following your work in the future. with your further collaboration we hope to make new breakthroughs in our particular field of historical materialism and finally eliminate the scourge of the 'philosopher' once and for all.

detrures wrote:today i'm like a frickin' seventh dan in philosophical aikido, bruh, and i've taken badassedness to a whole nuther level

Jesus. Some kind of 3-ring Tracircus Illogico-Philosophicus happening over here!

Or something.

I'm spending so much time now immersed in message forums filled with jealous, nitpicking techies who think they do tangible, worthwhile things with their lives while everyone hanging out in places like this are just blowing hot air...

dk wrote:I'm spending so much time now immersed in message forums filled with jealous, nitpicking techies who think they do tangible, worthwhile things with their lives while everyone hanging out in places like this are just blowing hot air...

well kane, i don't think what those techies said is entirely untrue, i'm loath to admit. a great bit of philosophy is hot air, but because most philosophers - excluding a section of ruling class lackey philosophers who's job it was to rationalize the power of the elite over the majority - aren't aware of the hot air they're blowing, so they aren't to be blamed for the mess they make. these are honest mistakes. when a philosopher commits these, we treat him/her like a retarded kid; we pat him on the head, say 'it's okay, you did your best', and give him a popsicle.

but just because the techies happened to be right in their estimation, it doesn't mean they know exactly how and why most philosophy is hot air... and this is because one has to be a philosopher to know this stuff. that totally looks like a blatant contradiction, i know, but it's not. i meant a different kind of philosopher; the new and improved version, one who will appear to the philosophers in the same way the antichrist appears to the christians.

but these techies are probably just jealous because they don't have the vocabularies or rhetorical skills that philosophers are trained to have. and btw, something needs to be righted about the history of philosophy, while i'm at it. every philosopher hitherto called a 'sophist' has actually been the true philosopher, while those who most detested them (e.g., plato and socrates) were the fakes. the art of true philosophy has only recently come into form over the last couple centuries... namely in the analytical movements. the analytical movement is to philosophy as a whole, what the sophist movement was to philosophy in particular. in fact, we owe the sophists for proving, ipso facto, the essence of philosophy as hot air. it was their capacity to persuade with any well crafted argument, that proved the latent obscurity in philosophical language. we needed the sophists to realize this, to be able to see what philosophy was capable of. without them, and the recent analytical movement, we might have been doomed for another thousand years of gobbledygook and intellectual shenanigans.

p.s. i can't seem to find a way to reply to your comment on my soundcloud page. probably because i only spent 4.7 seconds doing so. i'll just answer here; all those songs were 'written' with a free beat-maker app, so any sounds you are hearing are part of whatever sound-set is being used. i've linked to the app in the info section of the page if you want to try it out. it's very easy to use. if you want a challenge, try recording a single track without using the metronome. this is as close as you'll get to actually needing some skill as a 'musician' to write something. these new electronic music making devices are so easy to use, an orangutan could put mozart to shame with one. this isn't a good thing, btw. modern technologies are slowly depreciating music, eliminating both the intimacy a musician has with his instrument, as well as the technical skill needed to be a real musician with any degree of talent.

this all began with the tinsel town rebellion, which is a long story that would require a critical analysis of capitalism and its effects on the music industry... something i am not able to give at this juncture due to a toasted bagel being now ready for my consumption. frank will fill you in while i'm gone.